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| A lot of news about the GABE MAN this week |
Anyway, if you want the news ON DEMAND, then you should definitely follow me on Twitter Dot Com. Type in Twitter then the dot then com on your web browser and then look for me @HorbFlerbminber. Caution, if you can't stand the HEAT, don't follow the HORB. Can you handle my TAKES? CAN YOU? Well, I don't give a fuck, follow me anyway. Also, I have back issues of the newsletter available. WHAT'S MORE EXCITING THAN READING OLD NEWS? It's so enthralling, you'll want to record 16 hour podcasts about them! You can sample from such issues as:
- January 1, 1900 - All your VCRs will default to this date in the future. Instructions are included for how to combat this error.
- July 1, 1914 - Everything you need to know about Gavrilo Princip's botched angle that resulted in the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Was Jess McMahon's attempt at building to WrestleMania Negative LXX's main event between Stanislaus Zbyszko and Georg Hackenschmidt shortsighted from the beginning?
- December 17, 1997 - I go backstage on Monday Nitro for a DEEP dive on the roster, which was mostly an excuse to see if Lanny Poffo could really suck his own dick.
- December 24, 1997 - No, Lanny Poffo couldn't really suck his own dick. One of these days, I will hit the jackpot on this.
- August 6, 2003 - I set the record for most whitespace in the history of wrestling newsletters.
Now, it's time for the news.
- FloSlam filed suit against WWN Live, claiming WWN Live officials misrepresented the number of people who bought their Internet pay-per-views regularly. Gabe Sapolsky was said to have claimed "more people than attended WrestleMania III" as the average amount of paying customers, citing how many people claimed to have seen Matt Riddle bodyslamming Larry Dallas at La Boom Nightclub. Sapolsky produced records claiming that the venue could seat 200,000 people, and well, even I know that's wrong.
- FloSlam pulled EVOLVE 92 and 93 off its streaming schedule in response to the suit. All WWN Live programming has been pulled for the indefinite future, leaving the service with only rodeo, competitive tiddly-winks, and House of Hardcore.
- Defiant in the face of the loss of content, FloSlam has raised the price of the service to $69 per month, rebranding as The Nicest Streaming Service Around™.
- I asked Ring of Honor/Sinclair Broadcast Group representative Shadowy Figure in a Trenchcoat if they planned on launching a streaming service to capitalize on the market vacuum, and he just laughed for five minutes and blew vape in my face before skulking off into the aether.
- Adding onto the bad news for Sapolsky, a random WWN Live employee leaked an e-mail from the beleaguered booker to talent. The e-mail from Sapolsky gave EVOLVE talent the orders to bury the bodies of any wrestlers killed by shoddy working conditions in shallow, unmarked graves and to frame the murders on a "certain" writer for another site. Sapolsky also let talent know where to find gloves with that writer's fingerprints on them for handling.
- When Sapolsky found out about the leak, he threatened to have one WWN Live employee fed to The Rancor every hour on the hour until the person responsible came forward.
- I tried getting comment from Sapolsky about all this, but he told me "Only the high rollers get to talk to the Gabe man, baby. Cold hard cash or gift certificates to the Sizzler only. Otherwise, the best access you get is Ol' Double L [referring to Lenny "Lenny Leonard" Leonard], but that's only if I like you. David Bixenspan only gets to talk to Larry 'the D Man' Dallas, daddy."
- Sapolsky was found yelling "YOU HAVE BETRAYED EVOLVE WRESTLING!" into a Wendy's drive-thru microphone at 4 AM Monday morning. It didn't even open until 61.
- After the staff of the Everything EVOLVES podcast refused to divulge information on who leaked the information, Sapolsky took to Twitter to post ten hours of looped footage of the podcast's cohosts going to the bathroom, captioned only "How's the feed now, bitch?"
- When Paul "Triple H" Levesque was asked about what he thought of Sapolsky's actions over the last few days, he replied, "Who?"
- Levesque was then asked about why he takes so many pictures with NXT talent. He responded, "Look-uh, if I take enough-uh pictures-uh with these vanilla midgets, maybe you smark-ass motherfuckers will stop saying I did-uh racism to Booker T at WrestleMani-uh XIX."
- Braun Strowman was originally scheduled to defeat Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at No Mercy because Vince McMahon hadn't taken his monthly bowel movement yet. He was extra irritable and blamed Lesnar for inventing diverticulitis. However, he pooped hours before the show began and went back to his original decision.
- IS JOHN CENA RETIRING? I asked Anonymous Backstage Tipster CJ Perry, and she said "Who cares? It's all about him. He's so self-centered. Just because you were arguably the biggest star in the company for more than a decade doesn't give you the right to take a curtain call like that. What about me? I was in Pitch Perfect! I WAS IN PITCH MOTHERFUCKING PERFECT!"
- Cena did say that he would retire when he loses a step instead of becoming one of, ahem, those guys on the Edge and Christian Show, who then threw to their live wrestling correspondent Lance Storm covering Terry Funk's latest unretirement.
- Cesaro's injury at No Mercy was planned as he wanted to show that he was willing to grab the brass ring by mutilating himself. However, company officials are said to have heat with him because he ruined his beautiful, beautiful face.
- ENZO AMORE HEAT WATCH: It seemed that his heat backstage was gone when he won the Cruiserweight Championship at No Mercy and was allowed to close the show. The end segment with the whole division and then Braun Strowman was planned by writers regardless of opinion. However, the part where New Jack came out and stabbed him 50 times with a jagged piece of scrap metal was punishment, as Amore allegedly told Stephanie McMahon, "Yo, if you was a stripper, I'd tip you $11 in ones, that's how fine you are, how you doin."
- Asuka will make her main roster debut at TLC, where she will replace Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.
- Jeff Hardy tore his rotator cuff and will require surgery to repair it. He will be out for several months. Sources say he got the injury while furiously making a wanking motion at Ed Nordholm in the latest attempt to win back the trademarks for the Broken Universe.
- Mayu Iwatani dislocated her elbow and had to lose the World of STARDOM Championship to Toni Storm, who traded in said belt for a tiny version to wear around her wrist to go with her tiny hat.
- The Bullet Club invaded RAW Monday night in Ontario, CA. Apparently, Cody Rhodes was mad that WWE dared put on a pay-per-view where both Cesaro AND Braun Strowman bled the night before. "Everyone knows my father invented bleeding. EVERYONE. I'm gonna make Vince McMahon kiss the rings."
- Rhodes officially signed with Ring of Honor, meaning the number of promotions you won't care to see him on domestically has been narrowed down to one.
- CMLL cancelled its weekend shows due to the earthquake from last week, giving everyone planning on no-showing with no notice a huge sigh of relief.
- John Cena will film a movie with Kumail Nanijiani this winter called Actually, I'm The Real Racist: The Jinder Mahal Story.
- Revolution Pro Wrestling has announced it will be presenting Keith Lee taking on Tomohiro Ishii. I for one cannot wait for Lee to test himself against TRUE STRONG STYLE. This will be his first ever real match. Every other match he's wrestled has been a piece of shit leading to this. I'm sorry if this offends.
- Meanwhile, New Japan Pro Wrestling unveiled the card for King of Pro Wrestling, and, well, yeah, I count at least five matches that will get six stars or more. If you disagree, you're co-opted and gotten to by Vince McMahon's goons.
- I received reports from RAW backstage Monday that Mickie James' promo on Alexa Bliss was a shoot, but then those reports were corrected to say that it was just a rib on Renee Young for not wearing shoes.
- Ric Flair has claimed to have bedded 10,000 women in his life. He later added "I'm pretty sure one of them is Charlotte's mom, WOO!"
- Country music star Darius Rucker visited Flair to discuss plans for their pop-rock supergroup, WOO-tie and the Blowfish.
- Floyd Mayweather has artwork of him and Conor McGregor in his house. "They're tasteful nudes," he said. "No penetration. It's not pornographic in nature at all."
- ROH announced that the tournament it is running on Chris Jericho's cruise will be for a shot at the World Championship, which has all the main event wrestlers shook fearing they'll actually have to go on that thing.
- Ted Arcidi was mentioned on this week's episode of Young Sheldon, or was that just gas? I don't know.
- Mike and Maria Kanellis are expecting their first child. Maria said "You're damn right I only removed my IUD after we signed that sweet WWE contract." The funny thing is, I asked her for any info she had on CM Punk and whether or not he did Benghazi.
- Celeste Bonin, formerly known as Kaitlyn, is training for a return to the ring, presumably to feud with Emma and Natalya Neidhart over who takes the best Instagram pictures.
- Bill Goldberg on why he's open to returning to WWE in the future: "I'm still not done unloading the Brinks truck of gold bars from the LAST time I wrestled for them."
Last week's poll results are in, and congratulations, you're having three girls and a boy. Quadruplets, how blessed. This week's poll:
1 - Ed. Note - This week's Horb Report is dedicated to the memory of TomBroDude, the funniest dude in Twitter history. — TH
